1/0 MR. H. SAUNDERS ON THE LARIN.&. [Feb. 5, 



Larus fuscescens, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1867, p. 315, et Rev. List of 

 Vert. (1872), p. 316. 



1 Larus fuscescens, Licht. ; Bruch, J. f. Orn. 1853, p. 100, 

 (part.). One of the two specimens so labelled in the Berlin 

 Museum is of this species ; the other is a L. fuscus. 



After much consideration and the examination of a very large 

 series of specimens from various localities, I have come to the con- 

 clusion that this form, or species, is sufficiently distinct to be treated 

 apart from L. argentatus. The distinguishing characteristics of L. 

 cachinnans are the darker mantle, yellow legs and feet, and the- deep 

 orange-red ring round the outside of the eye. These colours are 

 naturally much more apparent in life than in dried skins ; but the 

 colour of the mantle is enough to enable any one with an ordinary 

 perception of shades to separate the two birds at a glance. In the 

 pattern of the primaries, and in the individual variations in size both 

 are alike. With regard to the name which I have adopted, it seems 

 to me that there cannot be the slightest doubt as to the species 

 Pallas meant by his Larus cachinnans from the Caspian and the 

 Steppes : he describes it fully ; and, to avoid any ambiguity as to the 

 shade of colour of the mantle, he uses precisely the same term that 

 he does for the mantle of L. ichthyaetus, which exactly suits this 

 species, whilst it is too dark for L. argentatus, and too light for L. 

 affinis. Yet more, my friend Mr. Seebohm, on his return from 

 Siberia, examined the Larince in the St. -Petersburg Museum ; and, 

 thanks to him, I am able to state from absolute comparison that L. 

 cachinnans, and L. leucophcsus of the Mediterranean are the same, 

 Pallas's name having the priority. 



It appears, indeed, to be a form which, whether from living in a 

 more brilliant atmosphere, or from frequenting inland seas as dis- 

 tinct from great oceans, or from other causes with which we are not 

 acquainted, has acquired a greater intensity of coloration than its 

 congener ; but it is not altogether easy to indicate its precise range. 

 The most northern example that I have examined is from Havre, 

 an adult male, the oldest, to judge by the primaries, of any grey- 

 backed gull in my collection ; so that it appears to straggle up the 

 French coast. It is not, however, till the Mediterranean is reached 

 that L. cachinnans replaces L. argentatus; thence it ranges through- 

 out that inland sea, breeding on its shores and islands ; goes up the 

 Black Sea, across the steppes and the low-lying marshy and salt- 

 lake districts of Russia from the mouths of the Volga and the shores 

 of the Caspian, as far as Vologda, across the Ural river and the 

 Kirgish steppes, to the Irtich and as far as Lake Baikal. The above 

 seems to be, roughly, its breeding-range ; for Meves's description of 

 the " L. cachinnans " obtained at Cholmogory on the Dwina applies 

 better to the next species : it was so dark in the mantle that he at 

 first took it to be L. fuscus. The species found in Kashmir by the 

 Yarkand expedition was probably L. cachinnans. It goes down the 

 Red Sea, and in winter visits the Persian Gulf, and the Mekran coast 

 as far as Kurrachee. It is also found along the coasts of China and 

 Japan in winter, and is the species recorded by Swinhoe under the 

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